Businesses struggle for recovery from Covid-19 pandemic

The business sector is faced with various challenges of recovery against the backdrop of the Covid-19 situation.

Although a few sectors have received benefits, most of the industries and service sectors such as tourism keep facing difficulties in their survival.

Harri Airaksinen, the chief executive officer of Business Tampere, said that the different recovery and funding programs will soon lead to a huge amount of investments.

He, however, said that government supports in Finland were small in comparison with other countries.

“It is a political decision whether this should have been bigger,” Airaksinen told the Daily Finland, adding that the main reason some businesses did not get support is that they were in a bad shape even before the Covid crisis.

“The idea was that only the companies that were doing well earlier would get the support. I think that was a right decision, but, of course, it was rude,” he said.

Terming the situation in Tampere different, he said that some businesses were doing well amid the pandemic.

“The IT industry has probably even benefited from the situation with all the remote work. And even though the manufacturing industry was hit very much at the beginning, the recovery process has begun quite successfully,” he said.

“All in all, businesses around here have survived surprisingly well,” he said, adding that some small, specialized restaurants or bars closed but at the same time, there were businesses that were newly founded.

When it comes to tourism, Tampere is exceptional because even before the pandemic, around 80 percent of travelers were domestic.

“It is a different situation from other tourism regions in Finland such as the Metropolitan area or Lapland. They faced problems but our tourism has recovered very much”, said Airaksinen, adding that they are expecting a record-breaking summer.

In Rovaniemi where international tourism plays a leading role, many companies struggled amid the Covid-19 situation.

Eija Jussila-Salmi, Business Advisor of Business Rovaniemi, said that especially small businesses that did not get financial support from the government suffered a lot.

“The main reason some companies didn’t get support was that they needed to prove that their turnover dropped by 30 percent against that of the previous year. In many cases, companies suffered nearly as bad but they still didn’t get financial help,” Jussila-Salmi told the Daily Finland.

Companies that did not get support, she said, mainly managed to survive by cutting their costs and changing their business lines. Some entrepreneurs put their businesses on hold and worked in other fields to earn enough money.

“We were afraid that there will be a lot of bankruptcy cases but it didn’t happen. There are only a few medium-sized companies that had to close down,” said Jussila-Salmi, adding that it was surprising how certain companies managed to survive.

She, however, said that most businesses in Rovaniemi were recovering again.

It was feared that during Covid-19, the number of newly founded companies in the city would drop.

“But it has been the same or even higher than in earlier years,” Jussila-Salmi said. “Many new micro-businesses were founded by people who lost their job because of the pandemic.”

Jussila-Salmi thinks that the next winter season will be very important.

“If there are no tourists from abroad, it will be the end for many local companies. When the pandemic began, they just finished a very good season and the financial reserves helped but nobody can survive for too long. The reservation books are quite full, so, many tourists want to come if it is possible,” she added.